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Beijing: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrived in China on Thursday on the latest stop of a sweep through Asia that aims to expand the kingdom’s influence on the continent.

Prince Mohammed touched down in the morning following earlier visits to India and Pakistan.

He’s due to meet officials including the Chinese president and ruling Communist Party leader, Xi Jinping, on Friday, highlighting Saudi Arabia’s importance as one of China’s top oil suppliers and a market for its exports, including military drones.

Prince Mohammed’s visit to Beijing follows one earlier this week by a high-powered delegation from Saudi Arabia’s chief strategic rival Iran. At a meeting Wednesday, Xi told Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani that “China’s resolve to develop a comprehensive strategic partnership with Iran will remain unchanged,” regardless of the evolving international situation, according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency.

The trip comes five months after the crown prince came under intense pressure following the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

At the same time, China is facing growing international criticism over its treatment of its Muslim minority groups. So far, Turkey has been the only majority Muslim country to criticize Beijing, with its Foreign Ministry this month calling treatment of minority Uighurs “a great cause of shame for humanity” and saying it is “no longer a secret” that China has arbitrarily detained more than a million Uighurs in “concentration camps.”

Saudi Arabia’s Al Saud royal family has long cast itself as the defender of Muslims across the world. Its king describes himself as the protector of Islam’s two holiest mosques at Medina and Mecca. Observant Muslims pray five times a day in the direction of the cube-shaped Kaaba at the mosque at Mecca.

Commenting Wednesday on the crown prince’s visit, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said recent years have “seen a positive momentum in our cooperation with fruitful outcomes in various areas such as infrastructure and space satellites.”

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers at the party headquarters in New Delhi on Thursday after storming back to power. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is headed for a comfortable majority in the 17th Lok Sabha as election trends show that the BJP is likely to cross the 300 mark on its own and the NDA may bag over 350 seats – a party or alliance needs 272 to form government.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday exuded confidence about victory in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, and promised he will bring a fresh “Vikas ki Ganga” to Bihar during his next tenure.
He also said terrorists should be beaten like “ghosts who are driven away after being caught by the tuft of hair”, and accused the Congress-led opposition of trying to downplay the issue of national security despite numerous lives lost in terror attacks.

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Referring to violence during the BJP President Amit Shah’s rally in Kolkata on Tuesday, Mamata Banerjee said that what happened there was worse than the violence that took place in the aftermath of Babri Masjid demolition in 1992.

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The Union minister for road transport and highways, water resources and river development said, “The BJP will win more seats than the 2014 general election and Narendra Modi will again be the prime minister. “Gadkari claimed that what the Congress could not do in 50 years, the BJP had done in five years.

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Attorney general KK Venugopal sought four weeks’ time to file the Centre’s reply. The bench, headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, directed the government to file its reply by May 4 and posted the matter for hearing on May 6.